How are you? I am doing pretty, pretty, pretty good! And here is an update, since I went dark for almost one year (not counting my crisis yesterday).
First, some housekeeping. It troubles me greatly that every time I write a post it sends an email to you. I hate getting tons of emails. Because I have moved all my stuff over to Substack there is an option for me to stop the email each time I post, which I am going to do most of the time. Maybe once a month or two I will let the post go out by email so you do not forget about me, but otherwise, and right after this post, I am going to stop letting them automatically go to email.
Now we can get down to business. The most important thing for me, despite my best efforts at being more spiritual, which in turn, at least in my mind, means less materialistic - has been to make a lot of money. I cannot report that I am now a billionaire, not even close, but I am getting very close to becoming bulletproof financially. The wheels could still come off the cart, but if things go as planned in another two to three years I will have enough money to live the rest of my life without having to feel any more stress about finances. And I will know that my family is taken care of and can go on with or without me. That is all very important to me. And I am proud of myself.
Ok, so that is why I had not been writing much. But now I can write, because even though there are a few years to go to become financially bulletproof, I have pretty much got everything in place.
This all brings up the next major dilemma or problem, and semantics be damned I do like problems. I think. Anyway, what do I want to do with my life?
I don’t know but I have always felt that I had something to give the world. It kind of haunts me. Part of me thinks this is all about my ego and not anything true, but another part feels a strong and persistent desire to help.
It is legitimate to say that I want to help others and I think that is a good thing. I also feel ok about being proud and grateful for this, while of course staying mindful of having righteousness about the whole thing. So, bottom line, I want to contribute.
What do I want to contribute?
This question has been problematic until now. My entire life has been spent worrying and overthinking and then learning and then taming my overthinking, worrying, mind. Kind of like a lion trainer. I think I am something of an expert for folks like me. And I find life to be quite entertaining. So, I want to write short, entertaining posts about life and how to manage it better. Not novel, and far more straightforward and simple than I imagined my heroic role would be. Maybe a bit of a letdown. But not for long.
Ok, I will start, right here, today. Particularly since this is the day I got the results of my prostate MRI, which was supposed to tell me if I had prostate cancer. But nothing is that easy, the MRI only states that they found something that has a very high probability of being cancer. Good enough for me. To have a panic attack. My gut acid level skyrocketed, my sphincter (and every other muscle in my body) tightened, and I was calling mortuaries. But it ends well I promise. Maybe.
So let’s look at the few things I chose to do after my initial reaction.
I will die, this is important to recognize. And I feel pretty good about my life and how I have chosen to live it. But I do not want to die, yet.
Using my awareness I recognized that I had to look at this from an objective point of view. And because I have worked on this for a lot of my life, I could do that. What would I say to a friend or family member that called and told me they were in the same predicament? A lot of things. New list:
We do not yet know that it is cancer. It may not be.
Call the doctor and find out if it does turn out to be cancer is it small, medium, or large, and how easy would it be to treat? I did, and she told me it was small and easily treatable. Baby cancer, not to worry.
So, that feels better, for a while. Then the mind starts racing with every possible thought from terminal cancer spreading through my body to the mental inadequacies of my doctor and pictures of me dying in bed. Alone. With spiders all over me.
Stop! I know these thoughts are creating very horrible feelings and making whatever is happening to my body worse. Which is likely the coronary heart disease that I know about and am certain will be my ultimate killer. And I am ok with that, provided it happens in my sleep, after sex, and when I am in my late nineties.
The key here is the thoughts are causing trouble, thoughts that are inaccurate and partly habitual and partly my survival mechanism, which has always worked overtime and in overdrive. I know how to get this back on track.
And I do. And fairly quickly.
Even if I find out I am dying I want my last days to be as pleasant as I can make them. I do not want to spend my last days miserable.
Feeling bad will not change anything. Only make my quality of life worse.
Regarding my overactive survival mechanisms, I want to honor them, and we have made a deal. I will walk through a critical analysis each and every time my survival brain sets off alarms and then it has to chill out. Relax!
That watchful part of my mind (survival) wanted my attention to this thing that needed attention. Now I have given it the attention it needed, by making a follow-up appointment for another test to determine whether it is in fact cancer. Once that is done I will do everything in my power to get the best medical care available to resolve it, and finally, if I die from this I will do it with a smile. That is what I truly want. My survival mind believes me and lets me know it is watching carefully but will stand down for now. Great.
We all go through times when it is difficult to control our thoughts, but it is possible to control them. And thoughts create feelings, so by controlling our thoughts we can also control our feelings. But only if we listen to our minds and feelings FIRST!
How to do all that is precisely what I want to share with my fellow humans.